


Royal Grace

by ohmyfae



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Slapstick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-09-08 10:30:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8841118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: Wherein Noctis comports himself with all the grace and dignity of a king. Probably.





	1. A King's Responsibility

**Author's Note:**

> Just wanted to do a series of fun little shorts where Noct messes up royally.

Noct was having a problem getting to bed, and that problem’s name was Prompto.

Prompto sprawled on his back along all four sleeping bags in the not very spacious tent. His gangly limbs stretched to take up as much space as humanly possible, and he shifted so no one could step around him with any degree of ease. When Noctis rolled his eyes and tried to climb in anyways, he was stopped by a foot in the face.

Ignis raised his eyebrows as the young king stumbled back into the open. “Change your mind about an early night?” he asked.

“Someone,” Noct said, in a voice half choked with outrage and laughter, “has no respect for royalty.”

“I respect you plenty,” said Gladio, from his seat by the fire.

“When you earn it,” added Ignis.

Noct looked helplessly from one to the other, gestured at the tent, and threw his hands in the air. “Fine! Fine. War it is.”

Ignis felt the magic before Noct was even done casting the spell. “Not in the tent!” he cried, but it was too late. Far too late. Noct lobbed a light, compact blizzara spell right into the open mouth of the tent, which promptly collapsed in a puff of ice and snow. From within, Prompto squawked like a dying bird. 

“Congratulations,” Gladio said. “Now no one is sleeping in the tent tonight.” 

“As a king, you have to make the hard decisions,” said Noct, as Prompto, clad in an overshirt and trailing bedsheets, leapt out of the remains of the tent and sent them both tumbling off the side of the campsite.

There was a long pause, punctuated only by curses, shrieks, and occasional thumps as the king and his friend lost a fight with a holly bush. 

“We should probably intervene,” said Ignis, after a minute.

“Probably,” said Gladio. He patted the chair next to him. Ignis sat down and stretched his legs out at the fire. They sat there in companionable silence, sipping tea and gazing out at the setting sun over Duscae.

After another minute, a hand scrabbled at the stone and a disheveled head eased into view.

“Your Majesty,” said Ignis, in a tone of complete surprise. “How nice of you to join us.”

“Pull up a chair,” Gladio said. 

The look Noctis threw them could have rivaled a medusa’s for sheer spite. “You’re supposed to be my shield, Gladio.”

His older friend shrugged. “And you’re supposed to rebuild the tent, but here we are.”

“Indeed,” said Ignis. He and Gladio clinked their mugs together and drank. 

“Pretty sure… I won that one, bro,” Prompto said, from somewhere near Noct’s feet. “Ow! Hey!”

It was going to be a very long night. But as Gladio reminded Noct, being a king meant making the hard decisions. And that night, it meant that a king had to help pitch the tent while Ignis and Gladio remarked loudly on how beautiful the stars were.


	2. SIT DOWN, NOCTIS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Ignis has Had Enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I %100 did something like this during the game. Put on your seatbelts, boys.

“Noct, sit down.”

“Noct. Noct, get down from the top of the car.”

“Your Royal Majesty, King of Lucis, Chosen of the Light, get your royal ass off the back of the Regalia and onto your seat or so _help_ me!”

“Wow,” said Prompto. “I think you actually broke Iggy.” 

He leaned on the back of his seat, looking from Ignis to Noct, watching with great interest as a deep blush rose on Ignis’ cheeks and bloomed at his ears. In the back, Noct was perched on the top of his seat, one foot resting on the edge of the Regalia, the other dangling. Gladio feigned disinterest and raised his book just a little higher. 

Slowly, Noct raised his hands. Prompto watched as his friend broke into a slow, easy grin, and pointed finger guns right at the rearview mirror. He made a “ch-chk” noise and winked. 

Ignis slammed on the brakes.

Noct fell face-first into the back of Ignis’ headrest, knocking his royally appointed confidant into the steering wheel. Prompto fell backwards onto the dashboard. Both the front airbags inflated with a pathetic wheeze. Gladio, who was dutifully strapped in, jerked a little and turned a page.

“I hate you right now,” Noct mumbled, into the leather of Ignis’ seat.

“I assure you, the feeling is mutual,” Ignis said to the wheel.

Prompto snapped a picture.


	3. The Fisher King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noct has a brush with danger. Gladio has a crisis of confidence.

In all honesty, it was a bad idea to lure a band of monsters so close to a fishing spot.

Tactically, it was a perfect plan. Ignis had given the team the advantage of high ground, an easy escape route towards the dock, and an optimal patch of sun. What he hadn’t factored in was the possibility of distraction. 

“Eyes front, Noctis,” Gladio shouted, stepping in front of the young king with his shield raised high. Noctis blinked from somewhere under Gladio’s bicep. He’d been paying attention, truly, but he couldn’t help but notice that there was something in the water below them. A huge something, which looked suspiciously like the largest carp Noct had seen in his life—

Gladio groaned as the king, yet again gazing fondly at the shadow in the water, overestimated a step and went sliding off the back of the rock. Gladio raced for him and managed to catch him by the foot, but he didn’t have time to lift him up before another monster, all teeth and claws, leapt at his chest.

 _Alright, then,_ he thought. _I guess it’s arm day._

And that was how Noctis ended up dangling upside down inches from the water, while Gladio fought off the enemy one-handed. Unfortunately, Noct’s view when he tried to see what was taking Gladio so long was the slightly mesmerizing ripple of muscles on his friend's back, which distracted Noct from the fact that the shadow in the water was much, much closer to him than it had been before—

“Wow,” said Prompto, five minutes later. 

“I have to admit,” Ignis said, “this was not how I imagined this errand would go.”

Gladio held his head in both hands. 

“It’s a good one of you, Noct,” Prompto said. Noct lay on the bank of the river, soaked through, his hair curling in the damp. He gave Prompto a slow, haunted look, and Prompto helpfully leaned down to show him the photo.

It was of Noct, one leg shoved inside the gullet of a giant carp, frantically punching the offending fish in the eye. 

“I like the lighting in this one,” Ignis said, leaning over. “Look at how the fish is highlighted in the same color as the trees in the background.”

“I know, right? I dig it, too.”

Gladio groaned. Noctis coughed. In the distance, a dark fin flashed once in the water, and disappeared into the deep.


	4. On My Mark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ignis makes a mistake, and Noctis pays for it.

“Ignis! Instructions!”

Ignis surveyed the battlefield with a careful eye. There were three imperial soldiers flanking Prompto, a pair of assassins keeping Gladio too busy to intervene, and more approaching beyond an outcropping of rock. If they didn’t dispatch them soon, there was a very real danger that they would be overwhelmed. He nodded at Noct and threw knives at the targets that should be eliminated first to wrap up the battle. A sniper, an axeman, a sputtering warrior with a sword, a rock, another sniper—

Wait. A rock?

Ignis watched as Noct warped from soldier to soldier, a blazing, acrobatic tangle of pent-up aggression. It was almost beautiful, the way he moved so seamlessly, appearing in a crackle of magic to slash at an MT soldier’s neck, then warp onto the shoulders of a swordsman, then fling his body with all the force of twenty years of preparation onto a giant slab of unmoving stone.

There was a heavy silence in the field as the new King of Lucis slowly slid sideways into a patch of thistle. Ignis stared. The MT soldiers shuddered to a stop. Gladio made a choking sound. 

“That,” Ignis said, in a bright, chipper tone that barely hid the strangled sound of true desperation, “was a distraction!”

“It worked perfectly, Iggy,” Prompto said, loyally. 

A few feet away from where Ignis stood, the thistle at the base of the rock rustled with rage.


	5. Accidentally, with purpose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slight spoilers for Chapter 3/4!
> 
> Ardyn drives alongside the team on the way to the Disc. Noct is a fantastic driver.

The crunch of the Regalia crashing into Ardyn’s fancy red sportscar was a sound that Ardyn would remember for the rest of his life.

“Oh, no,” Noct said, in a dull, expressionless voice. “My foot slipped.”

Ardyn twisted around from behind the driver’s seat, his face frozen in a polite grimace. “No, no,” he said. “Pardon me.”

Noct put the Regalia into reverse, blinked slowly at Ardyn, and slammed a foot on the gas. There was another crunch.

“Consider yourself pardoned,” he said. Ardyn’s lips twitched slightly. Ignis buried his hands in his hair. The two cars disengaged with a screech of metal. The Regalia was tough, but Ardyn’s bumper looked like it had been chewed by daemons: A long strip of it landed in the dust with a thump.

“Maybe you should walk to the Disc from here,” Ardyn said, in a brittle voice.

“Sure,” said Noct. He jumped out of the Regalia. Gladio followed him, and whispered low in his ear. He nodded, and shook out his right hand. A mace materialized out of thin air, scratching a deep gouge down the side of Ardyn’s car as it landed in Noctis’ palm.

“Didn't mean to do that,” Noct said. 

Ardyn squeezed his eyes shut as Prompto ran in for a high five.


	6. Frog Prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A glimpse into what the locals think of Noctis and crew's escapades.

At a diner just up the slope from the Slough in Duscae, a group of women collapsed on plastic chairs and fanned themselves in the mid-afternoon heat. They all wore the jumpsuits and had the short hair of workers in Lestallum’s power plant, and treated the “paying customers only” sign like a guide for lesser beings.

“We’d better get back before Holly starts missing us,” the youngest, Juliann, said. Her coworkers laughed.

“Don’t sweat it, baby,” said Susan, her supervisor. “Relax. Enjoy the sunshine.”

The three women sat in a contented silence, listening to the radio as reports from the capital came through. 

“It’s a shame about the prince,” said one of them. The others nodded.

“What was he like?” Juliann asked. “Do any of y’all know?”

Susan thought about it. “Don’t know. A rich boy, from Insomnia. Probably never saw a day’s work in his life.”

The others shushed her. “Don’t speak ill of the dead,” Juliann said. Susan shrugged. 

“Run! Goddamn it, Gladio, just run!”

The three women jumped at the sound of shouting down the road, and craned their necks to get a good look past the diner sign. Four men were racing towards them, arms akimbo, legs kicking up grit and flecks of mud. As they approached, the first of them started half hopping, half running as his arms struggled to keep a grip on a large, writhing mass under his coat jacket. His companion, a blonde with a chaos of freckles, screeched and dropped something large and yellow on the ground. The brunette didn’t even bother to run, and trailed behind their fourth member, a dark haired man with a grim expression and abs of steel. Susan wolf whistled, and he gave her a pained smile. 

“It’s funny,” Juliann said, “but I thought, as they went by, I could hear something…”

“A grinding noise,” said her coworker. “Like… like a…”

“Here!” That shout came from the first man, who had stopped at a table next to a woman in a blue shawl and owlish glasses. He shoved a bag on the table, which rocked slightly. The woman reached into the bag and pulled out a large, bright yellow frog. 

“Aw, honey,” she said. “You are such a help!”

“We nearly died,” said the blonde. 

“That’s nice.”

The women at the table all shrugged. 

“Poor saps,” said Susan. “How badly off do you have to be, I wonder, to catch frogs for a living?”

“It sure is a shame,” said Juliann. They watched the boys limp off, pockets croaking faintly, and shook their heads at the misfortune of youth.


	7. Warp Speed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noct falls ill. Prompto learns some new things about his friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am painfully sick, so this seems much, much funnier to me than it probably does to anyone else at the moment. Ha. Ha ha.  
> (Might write actual sick fic where Gladio never gets ill and so any sickness is The End Of The World, but he spends the whole time being really passive aggressive about how Noct could be helping more.)

Something like this was bound to happen. The four companions had just spent three straight days slogging through rain, mud, and bogs with questionable mud-like properties. Prompto had the sort of metabolism that meant that a cold would knock him out fast, Ignis was the sort who self-medicated in discreet silence, and Gladio seemed to scare off illness with a flex of his muscles alone. It would have been easy to spot if any of them had fallen prey to the miserable weather. 

Noct was different.

The only sign that Noct may not have been feeling so well was his silence. When he would usually stop to proclaim how awful, wet, hot, or chilly the weather was with varying degrees of disgust throughout the day, he was now strangely quiet. He plodded a few feet behind the others, head down, shoulders hunched, and scowled at Gladio’s curious looks.

Prompto sighed when he heard Noct try to stifle a sniff. This couldn’t go on any longer. Something had to be done.

“Dude, you don’t look so good. You sure you’re okay?” Prompto made a show of hovering a step in front of Noct, ducking down to look in his eyes every time he tried to step away. Noct darted to the side—Prompto intercepted him. Noct tried to turn his head away—Prompto peered soulfully into his eyes with all the wounded love of an abandoned puppy. 

“Biss obh, Bronghto,” Noct said, eloquently. 

“Ha!” That was Gladio, sweeping in to wrap an arm around Noct’s neck. “Good job, Prompto.”

“Anytime.”

“Ngoo all fsnuck,” Noct said.

“Yes, we love you too,” said Gladio, with the air of one who was enjoying himself far, far too much at his friend’s expense. “Ignis, we have a sick prince on our hands. You know what this means?”

Ignis looked up from his recipe book with a sigh. “Broth and medicine, I suppose. Do you have any rope?”

Prompto sat next to Noct as the other two started rummaging through their bags. Noct’s eyes were unfocused, and now that he didn’t have to keep up the pretense of looking well, all the strength seemed to be draining out of him. He placed his head in both hands and closed his eyes.

“Sorry to ask this,” Prompto said after a while, “but what did Ignis mean by rope?”

Noct sighed, wetly. “You’ll see.”

“We’ll need to pad it so he doesn’t get burned,” Ignis was saying. Intrigued, Prompto clambered to his feet. What kind of sickness were these two talking about? He took a step closer to ask, when Gladio whipped around to face him.

“Prompto!” he cried. “Grab him! Now!”

Prompto blinked in surprise and turned towards the prince, but it was too late. Noct was desperately covering his mouth and nose in both hands, feet twisted on the ground in some sort of herculean effort. Then his eyes squinted shut, he leaned forward, and—

Sneezed.

There was a hiss of magic as Noct warped several feet back, slamming into a patch of mud. He inhaled sharply.

“Prompto, now!”

Prompto, Gladio, and Ignis darted forward. Noct sneezed again.

Smack! Back-first into a pile of driftwood.

Crack! Head over heels against a decomposing log.

Fzzt! Sideways into a pool of brackish water.

The prince’s companions ran after him as Noctis warped, sneezing and hacking, along the bank of the river like a demented frog. He only stopped when he hit a smooth rock-face blocking the road, whereupon he managed to warp himself half-conscious against it three times before Gladio and Prompto got to him.

Prompto looked down at the wheezing, mud-covered, bruised figure of his friend and struggled between sympathy and the overwhelming urge to never, ever let Noctis live this down. 

Oh well. What were friends for?

With all the love and determination of a true brother in arms, Prompto reached for his camera.


	8. Blinded by the light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time, no see!

“Man, it’s hot.” Noct oozed out of the backseat of the Regalia, sliding sweat-damp hair from his forehead with a clammy palm. His black t-shirt was drenched, and his leather jacket felt as though it had fused to his skin during the long drive from Hammerhead to Lestallum. He turned red-rimmed eyes towards the lookout, where a hot wind flowed up from the marshes like the breath of a daemon from Ravatogh. Three kids crouched on the pavement a little ways distant, holding a piece of foil up over a cracked egg.

The egg was already starting to brown.

Gladio huffed, and Noct whipped around to face him, drops of sweat slinging onto the door of the car.

“Don’t,” Noct said. Gladio’s lips curved in a smile.

“If it’s so hot, Noctis,” he said, for the seven-hundredth time in Noct’s recent memory, “take off the shirt.”

There was a moment of silence as Noctis struggled to contain the emergence of true, unadulterated rage boiling in his skin. 

“Fine!” he said. Prompto and Ignis turned from where they were watching the egg on the pavement catch fire. “Fine!” He ripped off his jacket, letting it fall onto the Regalia seat with a wet slap. “You want me to take off my shirt, Gladio?”

“Wait,” Gladio said, lifting his hands in supplication. “Noct, maybe you shouldn’t—“

“You want me to _take it off,_ Gladiolus _Amicitia?_ ” Noct cried, the fires of Ifrit burning behind his blue-violet eyes. 

“Majesty, not in public!” Ignis warned.

“Then _it’s your lucky day,_ ” Noct said, and pulled his t-shirt over his head.

Prompto cried out, covering his eyes with an arm. Ignis turned his back. Gladio winced as though facing a strong light, and all about them, tourists and locals converging on the lookout shouted and hissed and gasped as the harsh rays of the sun made Noctis Lucis Caelum’s unnaturally pale chest shine like a beacon in the midday heat.

“My gods!” a woman cried. 

Noctis stood there, panting, chest heaving as he faced down Gladio with righteous fury. 

Gladio slowly inched forward, eyes squinted shut, and groped in the backseat of the Regalia for Noct’s discarded shirt. He held it out, an offering before a pasty, vengeful god.

“I won’t say it again,” he said, as Noct swiped it out of his hand.

“Damn right you won’t,” Noct grumbled, shoving the sweat-soaked garment back on. The light that blanketed the lookout went down by at least twenty degrees, and Prompto finally uncovered his eyes.

“Let’s go to the Leville, where the air conditioning lives,” he said, and stormed off, head down as the startled crowds of Lestallum parted before him.


End file.
